The Ghost Of Azkaban
by IrishCailin16
Summary: Remus Lupin was sent to Azkaban twelve years ago, for murdering thirteen people with one curse. Now that he is free, Harry finds himself under the constant care and protection of the entire wizarding world...but will it be enough?
1. Chapter 1

AN: I know that I'm starting yet another fic, but I promise that I will keep writing all of my fics! I really hate it when people abandon their stories, so I refuse to be a hypocrite! The stories shall be completed!!

Anyhoo, this is my take on how things could have gone if Remus had been sent to Azkaban instead of Sirius.

SPOILER ALERT: Contains exact quotes from POA!

Please read and review!!

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter!

Harry Potter came downstairs on the morning of his thirteenth birthday, feeling a lot more cheerful than he had on his previous birthdays. The reason for this was the fact that he had received four birthday presents in the middle of the night, from the four people that he cared about most in the world; Ron, Hermione, Hagrid, and of course, his godfather, Sirius, who was currently in Ireland on business.

Smiling to himself, he sat down next to Uncle Vernon and helped himself to some toast. Uncle Vernon, who had been reading the paper, looked up and glared. But for once in his life, he wasn't glaring at Harry; he was glaring at the kitchen TV screen. Harry followed his gaze and gasped.

Looking back at him from the TV was a gaunt looking man, with shoulder-length brown hair that was flecked with grey. Several long scars ran across his face, as though they had been made by an animal's claw, and he had premature lines around his mouth and eyes.

"…the public is warned that Lupin is armed and extremely dangerous. A special hotline has been set up, and any sightings of Lupin should be reported immediately."

"No need to tell us _he's _no good," snorted Uncle Vernon, glaring at the prisoner over the top of his newspaper. "Look at the state of him, covered in scars and what not. I wouldn't be surprised if he was covered in _tattoos _as well." Uncle Vernon was strongly against tattoos, piercings and anything that wasn't 'normal', as he liked to put it. Harry had the feeling that Uncle Vernon wouldn't have liked the man on the screen even if he wasn't a convict.

However, as Harry looked into the eyes of the man on the television screen, he felt pity for him. Underneath the gaunt face and multiple scars and lines, his eyes held a kindness. Harry hadn't got a clue what the prisoner had done, but just looking at him was enough to convince Harry that he was innocent.

Harry slumped down on a curb in Magnolia Crescent one week later, his chest heaving from the combination of dragging a heavy trunk, and being extremely angry.

After a few minutes, panic started to take hold of him. He had no way of contacting his godfather or his best friends because Hedwig was at Ron's, and he was almost certain that Ministry of Magic representatives would be swooping down at him at any moment for using magic outside of Hogwarts.

Yes, Harry Potter had succeeded in getting himself into yet another mess!

After a few minutes of pondering what few options he had, Harry opened his trunk and started to rummage through it, looking for his father's invisibility cloak. But before he had found it, he straightened up suddenly, looking around him once more. A funny prickling on the back of his neck had made Harry feel he was being watched, but the street appeared to be deserted, and no lights shone from any of the square houses.

He bent over again, but straightened up suddenly when he heard a twig snap behind him. Clenching his wand tightly, he turned around to see…

Nothing.

Harry frowned, looking around him again. There was no-one in sight, and yet… Harry squinted into the darkness, looking into the front gardens of the houses around him. There was no-one there. It had probably just been a startled cat or something.

Just as Harry started to turn back to his trunk again, he definitely saw something! A dark figure had darted out from behind a parked car and disappeared into one of the perfectly kept gardens. Startled, Harry stepped backwards and tripped over his trunk, flinging out his wand arm to break his fall. Cursing slightly, he pulled himself to his feet, his wand raised and ready. Whatever it was was still watching him.

Suddenly, a loud BANG erupted behind Harry, freaking him out again, and a large, purple, triple-decker bus appeared out of thin air. A teenager in a violet uniform jumped off of the bus and started to speak into the night air, "Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. Just stick out your wand hand, step on board and…OY, ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME?"

Harry wasn't listening at all. Instead he was staring into the front garden of number 13, where the dark figure had been watching him from.

There was no-one there.

AN: Ok, this is some really crappy writing and I seem to be using the word 'no-one' a lot in this fic, but I'm feeling depressed at the mo (I hate being a teenager!)

Please review, it'll make me feel better!!

xxxx


	2. The Knight Bus

**AN: **I can explain, really...(dodges stones). No, seriously!!! (leaps into tree, which promptly gets set on fire). Ah now, this is a bit extreme...PUT DOWN THAT CHAINSAW!!!!!!!!!!

Ahem! Okay, so it's inexcusable how long it has taken me to update this feckin' thing! But at least I'm doing it, unlike some writers who never return to their fics! (shakes angry fist) Plus, I've been working on original fiction a lot, so you can't stay THAT mad at me!

Anyway, read, review, flame, criticise, correct, comment, torture the life out of until there's nothing left but the ashes of my broken dreams...well, you know the drill!

Disclaimer: If it's Harry Potter related, I don't own it!!

"Oy!"

"OY!!"

Harry looked up, startled. The conductor of the Knight Bus was staring down at him suspiciously. "Look, if you don't want ta go nowhere…" "No, no, I do, I just..." Harry stammered, taking one last glance at number 13's garden. "What?" "There was something watching me, just over there..." The conductor peered at the hydrangeas and snorted. "Ah, don't be gettin' all paranoid mate, just 'cos that prisoner's on the loose. C'mon!" And with that, he grabbed one end of Harry's trunk and started to haul it on board. Harry caught the other end and climbed onto the bus. "So, where...?" The conducter broke off, staring at his forehead and Harry mentally cursed himself for not wearing a hat. His scar was famous, and if anyone recognised him, the Ministry could find him no problem…

"Woss that on your 'ead?" the teen asked. Harry flattened down his fringe and muttered "nothing." "Well, what's your name then?" the conductor persisted. Harry cast his mind around wildly and said the first name that popped into his head, "Neville Longbottom, what's yours?" Apparently he had said the magic words (so to speak) because the teenager stopped trying to squint through Harry's hair and straightened up, tucking his thumbs through his belt loops. "Stan Shunpike, conductor of the Knight Bus. And this 'ere's Ernie, our driver." Harry looked past Stan and saw a small wizard with enormous glasses peering at him from behind the massive, purple steering wheel.

"Well, come on," said Stan, rubbing his hands together, "where to?" Harry hesitated. He had nowhere to go. Sirius was in Ireland, the Weasleys were in Egypt, Hermione was in France…

"Ere, you did flag us down didn' ye?" Stan said suspiciously. Harry nodded quickly. "The Leaky Cauldron, please." Anywhere was better than here. He paid Stan and sat down on one of the many beds, staring gloomily at his shoes. What on earth was he going to do now? Sirius would kill him, if the Dursleys didn't catch up with him first.

Ernie took off again, and suddenly they were weaving throught the teaming streets of Edinburgh. And then the Lake District, and Cardiff, followed by Swindon, Wolverhampton, Cambridge, Ipswich... Harry's head was spinning and he felt a bit seasick, but he barely noticed - his mind was flicking through all the different ways that the Ministry could sentence him to death. Pulled apart by broomsticks maybe, or eaten by a dragon - apparently the Chinese Fireball had poisonous spikes for teeth, so death was extra painful. Or would he be sentenced to life in Azkaban? Harry didn't know much about the wizarding prison - Sirius refused to speak about it in length. The only thing he did tell Harry was that once you went in, you never came back out. Either you died from the cold (the prison was situated on an island in the North Sea) or you waited for the darkness to overwhelm you and you died anyway because you'd stop eating...stop wanting to live. Harry had always wondered if the prisoners in there really deserved to finish out their lives in this way. But when he started to ask Sirius what they had done to end up in there, his godfather had rapidly changed the subject. "Don't worry about it, Harry; you'll never have to go near the place. Now what about that Quidditch quarter-final, eh?" It took a lot to spook Sirius, so Harry didn't push it. But he hadn't forgotten.

Stan was leaning against Harry's bedpost, reading The Daily Prophet, but it wasn't the next Weird Sisters concert, The Chudley Canons embarrassing defeat against The Irish Rogues, or rock bottom prices for pewter cauldrons that caught Harry's attention - it was the large, moving picture on the front page of the paper, of a man he had seen on the television a week beforehand.

"He was on the Muggle News," Harry said. Stan looked up. "'Oo?" "That man on the front cover of the Prophet!" Stan looked at the paper and chuckled. " Remus Lupin? 'Course 'ee was on the Muggle news Neville, where ye been?" "Er, on holidays, in Iceland..." Stan raised an eyebrow. "Iceland in the summer?" Harry nodded vigorously. "Well, you know, the relations are Inuits and all that...anyway, what's this Lupin guy doing in the Daily Prophet?" Stan raised his other eyebrow, but thankfully didn't pry. "Well, ee's a murderer, in't ee?" "Sorry, what?" "Lupin – he killed a bunch of people, didn't ee? Thirteen it was, wiv' one curse!" Harry struggled to find his voice. "What, but...that's impossible..." "Dat's what the aurors said, wasn't it? But, like me old mum used to say, when a wizard goes bad, 'ee..." Stan went on and on, but Harry was still trying to comprehend Lupin, the man whose eyes had looked so kind, frightened even, being a mass murderer. Was it all just an act? Underneath it all, was his soul black and evil like Voldemort's?

A thought struck him as they were speeding through Blackpool. "Hey." Stan broke off mid-rant. "Did Lupin work for Voldemort?" Stan shrieked like a banshee, causing Ernie to swerve the bus violently, knocking over several wheelie bins and narrowly avoiding the flocks of seagulls that seemed reluctant to move. "You crazy or sumat'?" Stan bellowed as Ernie scraped mouldy lettuce off of the windscreen with his wand, "what 'choo go sayin' his name for?!" "Sorry, sorry, I meant You-Know-Who." "Blimey!" Stan collapsed onto a nearby bed, fanning himself with the newspaper. "So, em, did he?" "Y'wat?" "Work for him, I mean?" "Oh!" All business again, Stan straightened up and put on what Harry assumed was supposed to be his scary face – the effect was somewhat lost by the wiggling eyebrows. "Well, I 'eard that 'ee was Oo-Know-Who's number two, if ye get me? Took care of the dirty work and all that! Plus, 'ees a lycan, in't ee Ern? Vicious yokes, they are, always out to get 'choo!"

Ernie proceeded to tell Stan to shut up and make himself useful, while Harry sat back on his bed, feeling even sicker. A murderer _and_ a werewolf? Could a worse combination have been found? Harry hadn't studied werewolves in school yet, but if the old muggle films were anything to go by, the wizarding world was in big trouble.

And as the bus flew through Chester, another disturbing thought entered his mind.

If Lupin really was Voldemort's cronie, would he try and finish what his master had started?

Would he try to kill Harry?

AN: Kind of a crap chapter, I know, but it is 2 o'clock in the morning and I'm knackered! Plus, I'm just trying to set up the atmosphere – there's not much one can do with this bus journey! Next chapter should be a bit more exciting!

I had plans to try and keep this true enough to the book, but now I've decided that it's going to become just as far-fetched and dramatic as my other stories! Yay! (cue half eaten sandwiches and furry cheese being flung at my head). Anyhoo, don't do drugs and keep reading!

**_Fae Child 19: _**Glad you liked it, sorry for the wait!

**_1 4 2 write: _**Finally continuing, apologies for the wait!

**_NekoDoodle: _**Thanks for reviewing, sorry it took so long for the update!

**_Miss. Silver Star: _**I'm surprised that more people don't do this switcheroo actually, I love the idea behind it! Aw thanks, I was kinda wary about putting it up cos I wrote it quite quickly but hey, I trust your judgement! Thanks for reviewing and hope you enjoy the rest of the story!

**_TimeAndRhythmDoesIndeedSleep: _**Thanks for the review! I've read two or three others and I think we all take the tale in different directions! Enjoy the rest of the story!

**_Vetana: _**Thanks for the review! Well, I'm afraid I can't tell you if you'll see that outcome or not, but anything is possible! Enjoy the rest of the story!

IrishCailin16

xxx


End file.
